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Gonzl̀ez, Gabriela, 1965-
Oral history interview with Gabriela Gonzalez, 2021 March 22.
Interview with Gabriela Gonzalez, Louisiana State University Boyd Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Gonzalez explains how the pandemic has slowed down data analysis for LIGO, and she recounts her childhood in Cordoba, Argentina. She describes her early interests in science and her physics education as an undergraduate in Cordoba. Gonzalez explains the circumstances that led to her graduate studies at Syracuse University where she studied relativity under the direction of Peter Saulson, and where she first became involved with LIGO. She discusses her postdoctoral appointment at MIT to work in Rai Weisss group, and she explains LIGOs dual goals of detecting gravitational waves and building precision instruments toward that end. Gonzalez explains her decision to join the faculty at Penn State and she describes the site selection that led to the detection facility in Livingston, Louisiana. She describes the necessary redundancy of the LIGO detectors at Livingston and Hanford, Washington, and the importance of locking the mirrors on the detectors. Gonzalez describes the overall scene at LIGO in the months up to the detection and the theoretical guidance that improved the likelihood of success. She describes the intensive communication and data analysis to confirm the detection prior to the announcement, and she explains how she felt honored as part of the overall Nobel Prize award and subsequent celebration. Gonzalez describes LIGOs work in the current post-detection period, and her own focus on diagnostics of the data, and she explains why this work, and the constant concern in missing something important, can be stressful. At the end of the interview, Gonzalez surveys what mysteries LIGO can, and cannot, solve, and she conveys optimism for LIGOs long-term prospects to continue to push fundamental discovery.
Gabriela Gonzalez is the Louisiana State University Boyd Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Gonzalez completed her graduate studies at Syracuse University and a postdoctoral appointment at MIT. She was previously on faculty at Penn State and has been heavily involved in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, having been the spokesperson for the project from 2011 to 2017.
Barish, B.C. (Barry Clark), 1936-
Gonzl̀ez, Gabriela, 1965-
Saulson, Peter R.
Thorne, Kip S.
Weiss, Rainer 1932-
LIGO (Observatory)
Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, La.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Pennsylvania State University
Syracuse University. Dept. of Physics.
Black holes (Astronomy)
Brownian movements.
Double stars.
General relativity (Physics)
Gravitational waves.
Interferometry.
Laser interferometers.
Michelson interferometer -- Experiments.
Nobel Prizes
Women in physics
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Zierler, David, 1979- interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA
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